@redweasel  
But if burgess wasn’t self-isolating he would’ve wound up dead like everyone else, then again he’s probably not going to last long without his glasses. Not to mention the MONUMENTAL amounts of radiation lingering around, so the episode probably ended moments before his skin began to fall off
 

 
@Ardashir  
Came up with a better version of my previous comment that is more accurate to my reaction  
Why?

@Ardashir
 
well he’s not wrong, but self isolation is its own punishment. you can think burgess is making a horrible mistake, without concluding it’s a good thing for him to suffer, because he deserves his fate. the best cautionary tales aren’t about bad people receiving karmic justice. they’re about good people digging their own grave, people we can identify with and think, “wow, that could’ve been me if nobody had warned me about this.”
 
and that’s why I didn’t like misfortune cookie, because it was just “here’s a bad man, who’s evil for no reason, now let’s make him suffer.”

@Prometheus labs CEO  
Because he cared about people, I suppose? He saw humanity as worth preserving? You’d have to ask Mr. Serling as it was his idea, and he’s no longer with us.

@Ardashir  
…why?

@Prometheus labs CEO  
Serling was from what I’ve read very much a humanist in the sense of ‘the business of man is man’, I.e., human beings ought to care about each other and it’s wrong of them to not care.

@Ardashir
 
wow, what a jerk. I never cared enough to look up stuff he’s said about it.

@Ardashir  
By that logic I deserve to be locked in a sensory deprivation chamber for the rest of my life

@redweasel  
Serling himself said in interviews that have been quoted in books about the show, that the Burgess Meredith character in ‘Time Enough At Last’ was getting his deserved punishment for not liking people.
 
So while a lot of fans (especially readers like me) found his fate to be too much, Serling didn’t.

@Prometheus labs CEO
 
oh, I thought he was forced to eat until his stomach exploded. either way it’s disproportionate retribution.

@redweasel  
You mean “misfortune cookie”, the guy was an asshole of a critic, I mean he enjoyed ruining restaurants for god’s Sake, I’d say being stuck eating forever is a just punishment

@Ardashir
 
I never really got the impression that anyone thought he deserved that fate. wasn’t it more like he was too naive to realize the full implications of being alone forever? sort of like a five year old playing with a land mine.
 
now the food critic who had to eat himself to death, that was downright spiteful.

@Ardashir
 
 
+1

@Prometheus labs CEO  
He wanted to spend time with his books and didn’t like people. That was his ‘crime’.
 
I can normally agree with Serling’s take on things but this was one time I couldn’t even pretend to.

@Prometheus labs CEO
 
wanting to be alone.

@Ardashir
 
@Cirrus Light  
Under what kind of twisted logic would his horrible fate be seen as something he deserved, what was he even guilty of??

@Ardashir
 
 
Agreed.
 
 
@Cirrus Light
 
 
The past is a foreign country.

At least she didn’t wind up like this poor bastard

@Ardashir 
Oh yeah, certainly. I watched and loved a lot of it.

@Cirrus Light 
Twilight Zone was among the very best shows of the 50’s. Come to think of it, it’s still one of the best shows TV ever produced.
 
But for this episode.

@Ardashir 
60s culture could be weird at times. 50s, 60s, 70s, whatever it was…

D*mn how I hated this episode… and learned to hate it even more when I discovered that we were supposed to see this poor guy’s fate as his ‘just deserts’.

There was time

@Killbeat
 
@redweasel
 
@sumbozo
 
@kircher
 
Good times XD

It’s not a circus either, love.

That episode was like the best Lasik ad ever made.
 
@sumbozo
 
Why should I believe you? You’re Hitler!